People on the Internet Get Things Wrong: Comic Book Cover Edition

A great blog post about the recent Joker/Batgirl comic issue controversy. I know this is a video game blog, but I think it’s relevant because of the somewhat overlapping culture/fans of games and comics. The misconceptions and issues that many people (men and women) have about the portrayal of women in games, comics and other “nerdy” mediums is an issue that should be discussed with civility and an open mind as opposed to hostility.

Trigger Warning: Some of the images pulled from comic books depict assault and violence towards women.

DC is celebrating the Joker next month with a plethora of variant covers devoted to him. The Joker, who by definition is a deranged, sinister and disturbed individual is shown on most of these covers the way he’s always been: scaring the shit out of somebody. One specifically that sparked a lot of outrage was where the Joker is cozied up to a frightened Batgirl for her cover. After a lot of people voiced their displeasure with the cover AND RECEIVED THREATS OF VIOLENCE FOR IT, the artist Rafael Albuquerque asked DC to pull the cover. Now of course, there’s the backlash to the backlash as many fans and creators are crying foul and constructing this as an evil feminist argument that ruins everything…